Ah, tattoos. The Stitchery, the piece of my mind solely designated to all that is the art of tattoo. Including but not limited to: stories, memories, ideas, relative terms, shops, tattoo artist, everything I know related to tattoos. If I had a shop, if I could hack the immense pressure of being a tattoo artist, it would be called The Stitchery. The idea stemmed from a friend. She had been in a disastrous car accident, but the only mark it left on her was a large scar traveling up one side of her hip across the other to settle across her stomach. Instead of shame and an ugly reminder, she celebrated this mar stretched across her, with a tattoo. Simple black safety pins stitched themselves across the scar as if holding her together. Obviously having enough tattoos myself, ten as of now, the subject is quite important to me. Therefore I find it quite odd that I’ve never sat down to seriously write about tattoos themselves.
Sure they’ve made small appearances in my poetry, inspired and wormed their way into my short stories, but I don’t think I’ve dedicated enough time or writing to the subject. Nor have I gone to great lengths to puzzle out my fascination with this medium of art. So I hope you appreciate how much time I spent stewing over what form best fits this prominent way of life, the pressure to get all the words just right, in order to reach you, without you completely writing off the subject. Ideally I’d like you to be interested in the subject even if you’re not a tattoo person yourself. Perhaps I’m not writing this just for myself, but to ease ignorance and judgment from our corner of the world.
